Jump to content

Slave IV

Members
  • Posts

    6501
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Slave IV

  1. Thanks for the info! I just got another Re:Edit and love those things.
  2. I'm not a lawyer either but my understanding is that HG has all international rights to Macross so anything outside of Japan must be approved by HG. The products we are all buying are for the Japanese market only.
  3. But it's technically illegal to sell the products to anyone outside of Japan according to international law. So in a way, the Japanese retailers who sell Macross items to anyone outside Japan, along with the people buying them are breaking international law and "stealing". But Big West has made no legal move to prove it. So HG is breaking Japanese law, stealing from BW, BW is breaking International law and stealing from HG. I agree and just continuing the interesting discussion while we all wait to see the final products. Mainly, just pointing out that it's not so clear cut to claim to be "moral" and call others thieves so quickly. To me, almost all businesses are criminal to the sustainability of human life so you will never see me calling someone else as being immoral for the choices they make in the business world unless I'm just stating the obvious without judgement.
  4. Back to the discussion of the validity of these items... For those who claim the moral high horse stance, does that mean you do not buy Macross items outside of Japan that are not licensed by HG? Because if you do, you are stealing from HG and theft is theft, stealing is stealing, right? Just another reason why I don't take legal crutches seriously.
  5. Nice! How do you like the Comicave figures compared to Sentinel Re:Edits?
  6. If you are able to get one, transfer your credit card balances to another one that has 0% interest or anything lower than what you currently pay. Those promotions usually last a year or more so it buys you some time without more interest to pay. Then, start going through your stuff and sell what you don't think will bother you as much first. Also, save your money and use it to pay off those debts. Good luck!
  7. No idea, first time I've seen it was just now and first thing I noticed when I clicked the links was how bad those 25th symbols looked compared to yours.
  8. Yeah, I'm basically implying they should do that and more...except not with the ridiculous price increase.
  9. Not so sure how "stealth" that price increase is since it's about $100. Anyways, I support Arcadia by buying pretty much all their releases and am happy they are putting out Valks I missed out on. I just have no loyalty to any corporation and just let the market offer me what I want. If someone else beats them, I'm all for it. Competition is good for consumers, whether some think it's fair competition or not.
  10. I never pay much attention to color comparisons online because there are too many factors involved...the color sensitivity of the camera used, the lighting, the white balance setting, the setting of the monitors everyone's using, the color reproduction capabilities of the monitors everyone is using, etc. Of course, all thing being equal and comparing two things under those same conditions may show some differences but in the end, it's what the thing looks like in real life in front of me that counts. I don't mind the Arcadia colors at all but I've never been particularly sensitive towards slight shade differences and I don't have any Yammies to compare. That being said, I appreciate seeing all the pics of different generations of Valks. I hear a lot about the white colors used and if the Arcadia valks have some sort of treatment to keep them from yellowing, that is good to me. I have a couple Arcadia Valks by my window but they are above so they never get direct sunlight. I haven't noticed any discoloration yet but they haven't been there too long. Will see how it goes.
  11. Ah, ok a bit more reasonable. Haha, I keep thinking how you pull off these amazing trade deals? What scale is the XB-70? Now you got me thinking I need one. That is one of my favorite aircraft that I somehow never got a good model of.
  12. Haha, nice! That it is. Always intrigued by that aircraft, its design and capabilities. You get all that in the trade?
  13. Slave IV

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Yep! F360 and others helped me get through the woes of PayPal conversion fees. In the end, I opened a new PayPal account linked to a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees just to buy toys from Japan with. Make sure the card is Visa or MasterCard because even though Discover doesn't have foreign transaction fees, it won't give you the option shown above. I don't think AmEx works either. There is also a way to setup autopay through PayPal but I don't recommend it because they have recently had "glitches" where it switches back to their conversion rate without warning and they play dumb with no solution other than for you to cancel the order...and we all know that doesn't happen when we just stayed up to the break of dawn to secure a preorder during a 2 second window.
  14. Yeah, I love building model kits but just don't have the time to put into them anymore. I have a closet full of Bandai Star Wars figures I still need to build. Awesome haul!
  15. Those look great! I'd love a fan racer.
  16. Good conversation! I enjoyed it and I'm pretty much done for now. I'll just reiterate one last time that I think our entire for profit model we are all slaves to is unscrupulous so if people want to argue what is more imoral than another, go for it but it's all the same to me. Some people will go out of their way to make their business as consciously moral as possible and I commend them but we are all feeding the same monster in the end.
  17. Exactly! Business is about money and the rest is just smoke. That's why I think it's funny when people bring up fair, theft and other things. No business gives a crap about anything other than getting the cheapest labor they can when they outsource manufacturing to other countries (which is what Arcadia does). If you go to a country that doesn't care about your IP, it's all fair game to me. The only Ko/bootleg experience I have is with Transformers and those are typically 50% less and comparable or better than the officials. These KO VF1s should be out soon so will see how it goes.
  18. I can guarantee you companies don't go to China and then move to other countries like Vietnam because they want to help the people there. They go for the sole purpose of getting what they want for the lowest prices possible. Anyways, this is starting to go in circles so I'm not going to keep repeating All I know is I've never bought an unofficial Macross product, I work in a creative industry and take pride in my work but I never knock someone else's hustle. Others try to copy the work I do all the time and I don't care because I still do it better. If someone else can do it better, I'll give them my business, lol. If someone gives me good reason to buy an unofficial product by making a superior product for less, I'm in. Any other logic to me is just a self centered cop out.
  19. I think both are highly likely. When you go to another country for the sole purpose of exploiting the people there with low wages and other inhumane practices, it gives them a hell of an incentive to come up and do it in a way that shoves it back in your face. Modern technology makes it easier for them to do so.
  20. I suspect most KOs of high end toys like this to be inside jobs in the sense that they are either produced by people who have access to the official factory or they could be produced in the same factories by the same people. Especially with a design that's been around for this long, I doubt it would be very hard at all. As for quality, it is yet to be seen but it seems as the people behind KOs are a new generation who grew up around the same time as all of us fans and could be fans of the product themselves. These people seem to understand what the market is looking for and quality is something that is more and more prevalent in Ko products. They are able to analyze the market and deliver quickly, making them very successful. Depending on their level of success, it could lead to them surpassing the official company and eventually doing their own R&D to develop new, original (although unofficial) products.
×
×
  • Create New...